


red on the walls

by orphan_account



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombies, F/M, hell yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 13:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1690433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The pounding of her shoes on pavement seems to be the only noise in the city, and it sends goosebumps up Mary’s arms. "Don’t cry," she tells herself, taking steady, deep breaths to calm her jittering nerves. "No more noise than necessary." </p>
<p>At least she’d been an avid runner before the apocalypse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	red on the walls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thefelinequeen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefelinequeen/gifts).



> I know 2 of my Frary fics are late, and they'll be up ~sometime. birthday weekend was busy! But in the good news, I poured my heart and soul into this fic, so hopefully you like it. ^^ That also means it was long enough to be put on ao3, so I'll post a brief bit on here and the rest can be found on ao3. I'll add a link here, don't worry. Enjoy the 7th entry to 7 Days of Frary! I had a blast, so thank you for this wonderful opportunity. :D
> 
> Just taking the moment that if you'd like to prompt me on tumblr (unseeliequeens, though it's glitchy at the moment) for frary fics, feel free. in other words, enjoy the brainsss.

The pounding of her shoes on pavement seems to be the only noise in the city, and it sends goosebumps up Mary’s arms. _Don’t cry_ , she tells herself, taking steady, deep breaths to calm her jittering nerves. _No more noise than necessary._

At least she’d minored in French. At least she’d been an avid runner before the apocalypse.

Her backpack bumps against her back as she runs, and Mary breathes through her nose when she sees a green cross sticking out from the side of a building. She stops in front of the pharmacy and pulls out her gun, glancing through the window for a long moment before going in.

She keeps her ears pricked for any bone-dry rattling breaths or dragging feet or even helicopter blades—the government hadn’t dropped any supplies for so long, she was beginning to run out of ammunition—but hears nothing. Orléans is eerily quiet for one of the most populated cities of France in the beginning. When Mary steps inside, she tries to keep her disappointment at bay when she sees empty shelves. She almost goes to the back of the shop, but the door is chained and _zom_ is scrawled across the wall in red spray paint.

Goosebumps traveling up her arms, she books it out of the pharmacy and starts running again. _There has to be meds somewhere_ , she thinks. _There’s a pharmacy practically on every street in France._

She passes a shaded alley and swallows hard. On one hand, it’s abandoned, just like the rest of the city, but it’s shaded and spooky-looking. On the other, there’s a green cross attached to one of the buildings.

Mary tightens her grip on her backpack strap, casts another look around the streets, and runs down the street. She checks the doorstep of the pharmacy and, seeing nothing, goes in.

This one is only half-ransacked, and she smiles as she starts grabbing every item she sees. Her backpack is half-full of suntan lotion, shampoo, razors and everyday medicines by the time she’s done, and there’s enough room for her to break the glass on a vending machine and fill the rest of the space with water bottles.

When she turns to go, a zom is standing in the doorway. Bloodshot, half-blind eyes roll toward her, towards her smell, and when it opens its mouth a horrible crackling hiss escapes its lips.

A shudder of horror travels up Mary’s spine, and for a moment she is frozen to the spot. But when the zom limps forward, its left foot dragging against the floor, her instincts kick in. She lifts her gun, aims it for the forehead, and pulls the trigger.

The gunshot is deafening in the silence, and the zom’s last noise is a dying groan as it crumples to the ground and twitches. Mary counts _one, two, three_ , her gun hovering over its head, but the zom doesn’t move. She kneels down and snaps its neck, just in case.

She holsters her gun, hands shaking, and sprints out of the pharmacy to the street she’d been earlier. The sun is lowering, casting orange-and-pink lights down the entire street, but Mary only sees the black silhouette farther down the street. When she turns, a zom is shuffling in the opposite direction, its back to her.

Shit, she thinks, slinking back into the alley. She shuts the pharmacy door and crouches down, her hands shaking, and runs her hands through her hair. _This was a bad idea_ , she tells herself. _Major cities are always bad ideas in the movies. Amateur._

She checks her surroundings like someone paranoid. On the seventh check, she leans out to check to see if the zoms are still out on the street. The shuffling one is gone, so she steps out—and a grayed hand slams against a window.

Mary turns toward the sound, a choked scream escaping her, but a hand wraps around her mouth and tugs her down, stopping her scream from being any longer than a few seconds. The zom, older and more decayed than the one she’d killed, bares its teeth at her through the window, but it does nothing than stare at her.

“Ssh, you’re okay,” a voice whispers in her ear, and Mary jerks away from the person, pointing her gun at him. She can feel the heat of the zom’s gaze on her back, but this stranger is more pressing.

The one who’d kept her from screaming is a blond man she’s never seen before. He’s also armed, though he’s made no move for his gun or his knife. Mary hates how her arms shake while holding her gun, but she doesn’t take her eyes off of him.

“Who are you?”

“A friend,” the man replies, and Mary narrows her eyes. “Francis Valois,” he amends, and Mary nods. “Are you alone?” She nods again. “What’s your name?”

“Mary Stuart. I don’t want or need your help,” she tells him, and Francis glances out into the empty street rather than replying.

“When did I say I was offering help?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. Mary gives him a look, and he smiles. “Okay, you caught me. Have any food to spare?”

Mary swallows hard and shakes her head. “Food’s my next priority,” she tells him, and Francis nods.

“You know, I have a friend who happens to be an excellent cook,” he says. “And you’d probably have a better time understanding him, since he speaks English. Not saying that your French is bad, of course, it’s actually the opposite—”

Mary half-smiles. “What’s today’s dinner?”

“Crackers and bean soup. It’s actually quite delicious.”

She leans her head against the wall and lowers the gun. Francis seems to relax more as well as her smile turns more wry. “Sounds like I can’t pass it up.”

“You can’t pass anything of Leith’s up,” he says, standing up. He offers her a hand. “So? You up for trusting a complete stranger?”

“Only for the crackers and bean soup,” she retorts. She hesitates for only a moment before she places her hand in his warm one, and Francis pulls her up. She takes a small step forward as she jumps up, her arm brushing against his chest, and takes a step back as she feels her face flush even more. She turns around, sees the zom that is still scratching at the windowpane, and shudders. “Right, where is this place?”

“A restored castle outside Orléans. They finished it a few months before the apocalypse, wholly furnished all the rooms as they looked in medieval times and all. Incredibly convenient timing, I think.”

They walk side-by-side until they hear a soft guttural rasping hiss behind them. They turn around to see three new zoms limping after them, and Mary’s ribcage seems to tighten around her lungs. If they have our scent…

“We might be late for dinner,” she whispers to Francis.

“I know a route,” he says, touching her elbow. A tingle of heat rushes up her arm and Mary draws away, giving him a bemused look. If Francis felt the same thing she did, he doesn’t show it, because he looks away from the zoms behind them and starts running. Mary glances down to make sure her shoelaces are double-knotted and follows him.

Mary and Francis leave Orléans with a horde of five zoms on their trail, but Mary fixes her eyes to Francis’s back and does her best to avoid thinking about the five monsters dragging their feet as they hunt them down. Francis makes an abrupt cut for the forest lining the road, and Mary casts a glance over her shoulder.

She doesn’t see any zoms, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Another chill goes down her spine and she focuses back on Francis, taking a deep breath. _I’ve been alone too long. Maybe this might be good for me._

The trees start sloping downward, and Mary has to slow her run so she doesn’t fall. Soon, she hears the unmistakable rushing noise that all streams make, and a wide smile spreads across her face. “You’re a genius,” she tells Francis, who beams at her over his shoulder.

“I try.”

He is the first one to cross, and he takes several moments to splash the water across his legs before moving to the other bank. Mary jumps into the river and cups water in her hands, splashing it across her legs and waiting for just a moment. She looks up to see Francis waiting for her, watching her with an indescribable emotion on his face.

She feels a flush creep up her neck, but keeps her expression controlled. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says softly. A noise draws his attention away, and Mary turns to see the bushes rustling. She tenses, grabbing her gun again, but she doesn’t have any time to shoot before a gray fuzzball is bounding towards her. It slams into Mary, who steps back and sits on the riverbank.

Mary looks down to see a gray puppy quivering in her arms, then glances up to see a zom with only its torso pulling itself along with its hands. She isn’t even aware of Francis standing next to her when he shoots the creature, then splashes across to break its neck. She sets her gun down and cradles the puppy in her arms.

“A dog?” Francis asks, wading across the knee-deep brook to sit next to her. The puppy burrows itself deeper in Mary’s arms and only relaxes when she starts petting it. He has a coarse, curled coat, and a stub for a tail, but he’s the most adorable thing she’s ever seen.

“We can’t leave it behind,” Mary says. “Besides, a dog might be useful.”

“I agree, on both counts,” Francis says. He looks around, then hesitantly reaches out to scratch behind the puppy’s ears. It responds well to that, poking its head out from its hiding place underneath the crook of Mary’s arm and licking Francis’s hand.

Mary steals a glance at Francis and swallows. “Stirling,” she says, and Francis arches an eyebrow. “I’m going to name him Stirling. That’s where I’m from.”

“It seems the Scots are overrunning this side of France,” he says. “It happens we have about five other Scots at the castle too. No haggis, though.”

“I won’t complain, as long as we don’t have to eat any snails,” she replies, and Francis raises an eyebrow. She laughs at his mock offense and stands up, holding Stirling in one hand and holstering her gun in the other. “We should hurry. The zoms could be here at any moment.”

Francis nods, and they start their journey again. Mary sticks close to Francis, and he to her, but his presence doesn’t keep her from shuddering every time she spots a crawler nestled between two far-off bushes or hears the rattling groans far behind them. “The castle’s this way,” Francis says. Mary glances around the thick forest and swallows hard, holding Stirling tighter to her. _Almost safe_ , she tells herself, and water from the brook trickles down her leg, raising goosebumps across her legs. She can swear she catches a glimpse of a zom’s dead eyes through the trees, but then she blinks and the zom is gone.

She and Francis break through the line of trees and she blinks when she sees a brilliant white castle with a blue-and-gray roof sitting on the hill above them. “That’s where we live,” Francis says. Mary steps forward—

—and a slimy, graying hand with yellowed fingernails wraps around her other ankle and tugs. Mary can’t stop her scream this time, and she manages to twist so she doesn’t crush Stirling underneath her as she falls. She twists and sees a crawler from the forest, one they’d thought was dead and thus left alone, pulling itself along by its elbow and arm. The nails dig into her flesh, and Mary grits her teeth as she swings her free leg with as much force as she can muster and slams it into the crawler’s face.

The crawler’s grip slackens and suddenly Francis is there, twisting its head until she hears a snap and then moving to her, sitting her up straight and crouching in front of her. “Are you okay? Are you bit?” he asks, eyes roving down her legs to her ankle. Five crescent-shaped marks are cut into her ankle, and blood and water mix to ruin her sock.

“No—I—I’m fine,” she gasps, scrambling away from the unmoving corpse. Francis moves with her, facing the forest and scanning the trees for any sign of movement. He helps her to her feet and scoops up Stirling. Mary takes a step and winces, and that is enough for Francis to stick by her side and make sure she makes it up the hill without falling.

Two people are waiting for them at the castle gates—replaced by heavy wooden doors that look like they were stolen from a cathedral—and the man starts off with, “What took you so long?” He glances at Mary and his eyebrows raise. “Oh, I see.”

“Shut up, Bash,” Francis snaps. “Kenna, can you get the others? She’s not bit, just hurt. Does Nostradamus have any Neosporin?”

“I think so,” Kenna says, ushering them inside the castle. Bash looks over his shoulder and shuts the wooden doors, shoving a metal bar between the door handles before following them.

When her ankle is clean, Francis gives her a tour of the castle. The first stop is the kitchens, where Leith spoons out a bowl of bean soup and crackers for her, which she eats as he continues his tour. It’s nightfall by the time he stops at a door and pushes it open, revealing a magnificent red bedroom. “This is your room,” he announces, and the hesitantion in his voice makes her smile. “Do you like it? There are others, if you don’t—”

“It’s perfect,” Mary assures him. Francis’s expression clears and he straightens, clearing his throat. Mary goes to the bed, where a loose tee and sweatpants rest on the covers, and looks at Francis. “Whose are these?”

“Lola’s. She gave them to you, since you two look the same size. We thought you might like something clean.”

Mary smiles. “Thank you, Francis. For everything.”

Francis looks at a loss for words, and settles for a nod. “It was what anyone would do, Mary. For the record… I’m glad you’re here and not still in Orléans.”

“Me too.” Her smile softens. “Good night, Francis.”

“See you in the morning,” he says, and she laughs to herself when he shuts the door. One day, and already the thought of him makes her smile. Mary turns back to Lola’s clothes and changes, and the faux medieval bed is surprisingly comfortable when she slips underneath the covers.

The bed is right in front of the large windows, allowing a perfect view of the bloodmoon lowering in the sky. Mary tears her eyes away from the red-tinted full moon and shifts in the bed, closing her eyes when she feels Stirling jump up onto the bed beside her.

The night is peaceful and quiet, and even though she _knows_ she’s safe behind castle walls, she cannot shake the foreboding from her bones. Mary swallows and squeezes her eyes shut, but it does not keep the image of a horde of zoms at the castle gates out of her mind’s eyes.

And then, in the silence, she can _swear_ she hears a single scratch against her wall.


End file.
